Luang Prabang, Laos

In order to squeeze more days out of the schedule to spend in Chiang Mai, we completely cut Vientiane out, and even a day or so out of Luang Prabang, thereby leaving only three days in Laos, a decision I came to regret quite quickly. Luang Prabang (pronounced Loon or Lone Paban), is situated right on the famous Mekong river and still retains much of it's colonial French charm, and although many of the buildings are faded and beginning the long slide into disrepair, in many ways echoing the colonial era in which they were built, the look and feel of the town is very much alive. Laos is a "People's Democratic Republic ", meaning very poor, and definitely not as democratic as advertised, the flags emblazoned with the hammer and sickle are flying on every third building. The sense that tourists are quite unwelcome is given off by most of the local citizens, and even the waiters and waitresses show disdain for having to serve the interlopers. You can hear the tuk tuk drivers laughing and snickering as you pass. If I think about it, I suppose that Laos doesn't see many tourists, even though the local to tourist ratio in Luang Prabang is about 70 - 30, and the people are so poor that they just don't like what they see as westerners coming in and doing all the things they've been taught westerners do, try to buy everything, eating everything, and if the locals don't understand English they just speak English louder. I can make assumptions about why they appear to be so miserable, but I know so little about them as a people, it would just be uneducated guesses. So I won't try to figure them out right now and just report my experiences as unbiased as I can. For a country so supposedly bereft of tourists, they definitely have everything you need. Good internet and wifi, really nice and spacious guesthouses (ours was called the Apple guesthouse, run by Wayne, an expat Australian gentleman and his adopted son. These folks are very friendly, very helpful and more than willing to accommodate requests, I recommend them highly), fantastic food, both western and local, and even a couple of French bakeries. As for the sights, there are caves with thousands of Buddhist icons in them, there are waterfalls and river tours, there is a thoroughly unremarkable stupa at the top of a three hundred stair hike, and there's the natural beauty of the place, surrounded by misty deep green hills and the wide brown river. The traffic is almost nil, the shops sell things you'd never consider buying, like enormous intricately carved ivory opium pipes and bottles of snake whiskey complete with snake, and if you're lucky, they threw in a scorpion completely gratis. These are all tangible things, but what you'll take away is a feeling that you have stepped back in time some 70 odd years. The real sense that nothing much has changed, the style of the buildings, the relatively unspoiled scenery, and the scattering of wats and monasteries all lend themselves to an impression of timeless peace, calm and beauty. The people became marginally more likeable when they see our little boy, again everyone wants to see him smile and say hello in Lao (it escapes me at the moment), and to touch him, so I forgive the earlier misery machines. I begin to deeply regret having spent so much time in Chiang Mai, as I would have loved a few more days here to walk and tour and just watch the place happen. I could pretty easily spend a couple of weeks here too, maybe see something of the surrounding villages too, but we hacked our time budget to the absolute minimum, so it's off to Cambodia tomorrow. Angkor Wat! Excited!